Both
groups seemed to take little interest in putting it on their political
agenda. And doing so risked alienating allies, including Democrats and
Gov. John Kitzhaber, who desperately wants the project.

Today, the CRC is on
life support, after the state of Washington last year refused to commit
to pay its half of what was then a bi-state project. Gov. John Kitzhaber
keeps insisting Oregon should build it without Washington, shouldering
all the risk even though two-thirds of commuters live across the
Columbia.

Now, 1000 Friends of
Oregon and the Oregon League of Conservation Voters are finally speaking
up against the CRC—both groups motivated by concerns over Kitzhaber’s
decision to pursue the project alone.

“We
urge legislators to vote against the current ‘Oregon-only’ option,” says
a new report from 1000 Friends, distributed to lawmakers this week. “It
does not meet many of the most important interests of Oregon voters,
and it exposes Oregon taxpayers to avoidable financial risk.”

The report—which the
Oregon League of Conservation Voters signed on to—says the project is
based on flawed assumptions, overestimates tolling revenue expected to
pay off the project, and exaggerates the seismic risks and traffic
dangers of the current bridge.

“The back-up plan,”
the report says, “is to increase tolls, reduce or eliminate other
transportation projects in the state, and to raise taxes.”

Such criticisms are
not new. What is new is 1000 Friends’ willingness to put its name behind
them. The group, known for its bare-knuckled defense of Oregon’s
land-use laws, has been muted about the CRC since Bob Stacey left as
executive director in late 2009.

1000 Friends
executive director Jason Miner says Stacey had established the group’s
concerns about the CRC. His group felt no political pressure to stay
quiet in 2011 and 2012, he adds. But since 1000 Friends started asking
harder questions, Miner says he’s received pushback.

Specifically, he
says, House Democratic leaders warned that criticism of the CRC could
exclude his group from discussions about transportation policy. “That
has been made obvious to us from House leadership,” Miner says. “It’s a
subtle threat.”

House leadership says
that isn’t the case. “1000 Friends has been an important collaborator
and partner,” says Jared Mason-Gere, spokesman for House Speaker Tina Kotek (D-Portland). “I can’t
imagine any member of house leadership saying anything to change that.”

After Kitzhaber switched to an Oregon-only plan, Miner says he lobbied his board to oppose the project emphatically.“With
the Oregon-only approach, the threat to our interests in land use is
greater,” Miner says. “The financial risk threatens pretty much any
transportation project around the state.”

The Oregon League of
Conservation Voters’ silence on the CRC has been even more stark. The
group has a broader political agenda in Salem than does 1000 Friends,
deploys a political action committee and issues a closely watched
legislative scorecard after each regular session.

There was no vote
with higher environmental stakes than the one in February 2013 to fund
Oregon’s $450 million portion of the CRC. Yet the group didn’t include
the vote on the bill in its biannual scorecard.

Oregon League of
Conservation Voters executive director Doug Moore says that’s because
none of the groups in the Oregon Conservation Network identified the CRC
bill as a “threat” during the session, which would have prompted
full-scale lobbying against it. Moore says his predecessor, Jon Isaacs,
signed a 2011 letter stating the group was satisfied with the bi-state
CRC plan.

“I don’t like to move the goal posts on people,” he adds.

Moore says he later
came to distrust claims the project’s boosters were making about federal
funding and their ability to build the project efficiently.

“We we question
whether investing billions of dollars for one project outside the scope
of a long-term, comprehensive plan makes sense for Oregon,” Moore wrote
Kitzhaber in a Sept. 13, 2013, letter WW obtained through a public-records request.

1000 Friends’ Miner says some are asking why jump in now, when the CRC is nearly dead.

“It’s the time of
greatest threat because there are a lot of vested interests that still
want this to happen,” Miner says. “It’s clear that a lot can be driven
through this Legislature.”